ADOBE PRODUCTION STUDIO no native DVCPRO-HD support

If it wasnt for photoshop I will never get along with Adobe. Not that I like photoshop, some things work plain stupid. But what I want to say is that adobes web site is made for idiots, obviously. They delibratly misinforme and mislead the visitor and even more they dont finaly provide the nessecery information for there software. You have to search the site and search and then search again only to find out that if you are not goinf to buy the f product there is no way to find out if it does the job for you. In the other hand, my congratulation to Canopus. Look at theire site and tell me if I am wrong. They have a respect for the costumer, they realy provide info in one place called SPECS. I hope the best for this company, as I was hoping the best for Adobe before it screwd up like that. I really can;t wait for reviews for edius broadcast. Raylight was my other solution and stick with adobe, but Barry has scared me with his post about dual cpu nedeed. Any one tryied Raylight with Premiere 2 ? Well its probably to soon for that question.
 
How funny Barry, you coming over to the Mac.

I have been on Mac since 1994, last year I built my own PC with XPro and the best parts so I can learn XPpro better. I love the fact that you can do that with PC, build it yourself. I am a Mac/Apple invested person with thousands and thousands of dollars in Mac Hardware alone. The SW costs over the years, hhmmm. Hell I paid almost 3k from Cosa After Effects ( yeah before adobe bought it. ) Hell just between my Commotion and AE I have 6k invested. ( Side Bar -Makes me f-ing sick what they did to Commotion- killing it. It was ILM SW grown- flip books what they called it, and to kill it. Bastards.... My investment in the toilet )

The reason I find this funny coming from you barry; I was just going to ask you what you use on the PC side for DVCproHD? I luv my FCP, but it isn't perfect.

Barry to hear you mention the Mini was a shock. I am getting tired of the confined universe of Mac/Apple that I have lived in for almost 12 years.

If I need a boost in the form of a new engine; off to fry's and drop in a new CPU. Try that on a Mac. ( well I have from Sonnet, but it ain't the same ) If I need better graphics; off to fry's to get a killer graphic card. In the graphic card world, We Mac'ers don't have a large list at all. Pretty crappy...

Be careful the Apple Reality-Distortion Field is getting more powerful by the day....... Take it from a die-hard Mac'er.

On the Mac side where I stand it may look great, and may even feel great ( partial allusion -R.D.F involved ), but it' has very confined paths that you have pretty much no control over. The PC is more free to mess with.

I admire that.

That's all coming from a Mac person. Just my unbiased honest opinion, written on a Mac tower.


So Barry, are you really considering a Mini?

What do you use to edit DVCproHD at the moment?

It's funny that's what I was discussing with my friend Barlow last year. I wanted one of those maybe for location work. You know put a mini and a terra byte worth of storage all in a brief case for the hotel etc. I withdrew the concept when many said the Mac mini just didn't have power. I never gave it a spin after that.

Have you, or someone you know done the Mini thing?

Either way, the HVX200 is going spearhead DVCProHD into a larger realm. It's an awesome codec in a awesome camera ( HVX200 ) so you can't go wrong wherever you stand.


SECOND QUESTION FOR YOU BARRY......


Barry maybe you have a theory on this, either way I would like your opinion.

I just talked to someone that compared their DVCproHD from P2 recorded in the HVX200, and while the P2 was recording they were sending out component to a Kona DVCproHD card; same image, same format as the P2 was getting in camera. simultaneously recording at the same time.


What is funny, is the component into Kona DVCproHD was better looking than what went to P2 in camera same format/frame etc, when all played back together...

That ain't possible, right?

How is that possible. DVCproHD is DVCproHD whether it's in the HVX200 or into a Kona card. Right Barry?

Is there something else happening between CCD and in-coding to DVCproHD in camera vs CCD to component output that the picture would be better recorded straight to Kona card analog?

Isn't the path between ccd to P2 more sterile than CCD to analog cables to kona card?

I plan to test this very thing hopefully soon.....


Michael Pappas
Arrfilms@hotmail.com
PappasArts & Arrfilms Main site

CONTACT VIA AOL INSTANT MESSENGER
AT { PAPPASARTS2 }


XLH1 and HVX200 frame grabs and news here:
http://www.pbase.com/Arrfilms

http://www.PappasArts.com
http://www.Myspace.com/PappasArts






Barry_Green said:
I felt that way initially too. Then I realized a Mac Mini costs about the same as a single 4gb P2 card, and it became a lot more palatable. Plus DVCPRO-HD just plain works on the Mac platform; having plinked around with trying to figure out some workarounds for the PC, I just can't tolerate the idea of hours and hours of wasted time and transcoding and intermediate codecs and whatever workarounds, vs. just biting the bullet once and going with a working solution. The HVX is just too revolutionary of a tool to hobble myself with not being able to actually use it, by being trapped in workarounds.

With that said, RayLight might be a decent interim solution provided your desktop is up to the task. RayLight would let you work with footage on Premiere Pro or Vegas. It just requires a PC a whole lot faster than what I've got, and seeing as the Mac can deliver half a dozen streams of DVCPRO-HD in realtime, RayLight probably needs a dual-core 3ghz processor (or two) to get true realtime performance from Vegas, for one stream.


Avid does seem like a comprehensive solution -- and, heck, it's Avid, right? I picked up Express Pro HD for my laptop (I don't really want to be buying a Mac desktop and a Mac laptop, that's starting to get a bit excessive, and I have a brand-new two-month-old Dell 1920x1200 laptop here, so -- why not?) Plus the Mac laptop situation doesn't make a lot of sense for someone who needs an answer NOW -- the old powerbooks are slow compared to the new MacBooks, and the new MacBooks won't be available for a couple of months and won't run FCP anyway and won't support P2 cards. So do you get an old, slow, end-of-life product that will work but plummet in value? Or do you get a brand-new fast product that won't work today, but should in a few months -- but you need it today? My answer: punt, and get Avid for the PC. Plus I absolutely must have my HD Rack from Serious Magic, and that'll be PC-only, so for the laptop it made sense to go Avid.

So far it seems to be working but I will need to spend a lot more time getting familiar with the program.

For PC users, don't forget Edius Broadcast too -- $999 retail, probably significantly less "street price", and by all reports it has the best P2 integration and best HVX integration of all of them. Adam Wilt gave it a pretty big thumbs-up, and it seems like the most Vegas-like of all the editors. I might end up with all three by the time I'm done; Edius on the PC desktop, Avid on the laptop, and FCP on the Mac desktop.


I've been asking that question about them, and about Vegas, for months. I expect that by this time next year they'll probably both be on board, but I really don't intend to limp along with some bogus partial implementation of any software when there are perfectly workable solutions out there right now. Avid works. It needs an update to support 1080/24p and 1080/30p timelines, but other than that it works. Edius works end-to-end, and while it may not have all the features of Avid, it has better integration. And FCP works top-to-bottom, other than the "import P2" unwrap/rewrap process.
 
I think that in the end it all boils down to what Barry (or Jarred I don't remember) said some time ago. Adobe with Premiere and Sony with Vegas decided not to jump ship (And that was long ago) and collaborate with Panasonic to embed tight-native DVCPRO support in their systems when they had their chance, the real reason I guess we'll never know, Apple did and is now reaping the benefits.

What happens is that us pc users as future (or current for the precious few that have the HVX now) HVX owners will face or already are facing the consequences of that decision from these NLE makers. Not everyone wants to buy an AJA Xena or an AXIO system for financial and\or practical reasons, just think of it , everyone here knows that a Mac Mini can handle DVCPRO Editing in Final Cut by simply adding 1gb of ram. Can modern pc's handle it? Of course they can. And that's what's driving everyone crazy, because they can without fancy cards.

I really hope Adobe gets their act together, or even better it turns out it supports DVCPRO-HD natively from the get-go, no full reviews have been posted yet and there are no tryouts available, so we don't really know how it all works. Still if there's no light the solution will be bright clear....
 
FullRez said:
Barry, why don't you just run the Avid on the PC instead of your laptop? Can you elaborate on where Avid Express HD falls short for HVX support?
No, because I don't know enough about it yet. The only thing I can say about it at this point is that Avid doesn't utilize the metadata throughout the production chain; it seems to want to copy the audio and video files into a certain directory and then ignores the rest of the metadata. Canopus keeps it linked the entire way through.

Avid is a whole different animal from Vegas. It's like elephant vs. leopard. Canopus seems like a panther -- i.e., a lot more similar to the leopard that I want to stick with, Vegas. Canopus lets you throw any type of file, any frame rate, any resolution, any anything on the timeline. Avid doesn't appear to offer that same flexibility. But frankly I have to explore all of them in order to be able to offer HVX Book guidance, and having seen what they're capable of in some demos at DV Expo, that layout is what I'm currently aiming for (Avid on the laptop, FCP on a Mac desktop, and maybe Canopus on a PC desktop). The Canopus thing is one I'm not too sure of yet -- I think it really looks promising, but I don't really need two desktop editing stations...
 
Hi Jazzx

I don't know if you have familiar expirience with Adobe costumer support in Greece, but the most frequent responce in any cind of question is: download the demo version and see if it feets your needs. Unbeleavable !
Althought I am a big fun of the concept that says create ten different programs and make them work together, I truly believe that Adobe's disicions are far away from suporting that primery vision. DVCPRO-HD is not just another codec. Not to mention again that I believe there are issues with HDV also or probably the ignorance of the guy I talked to from Adobe make me believe so. Right now I am thinking the posibility of Edius Broadcast for capturing and probably editing and then use Raylight for the final project so I can work with after effects, audition and photoshop. Just a thought.
 
soarprod said:
Or even better Barry, if Matrox updates the .x100 to say .x200 with DVCproHD support for say ~$1500. <-This I would buy faster than a 128gb p2 for $100. I REALLY love my .x100 & PPro 1.5.1 combo for SD work. Pure realtime bliss.

I dunno... I had an RT2000 hardware card/premiere combo, and I used to think that was the way to go, but man, so many crashes and hardware issues and trying to keep straight whether it's one track or two of titles before realtime goes away, or one transition and two video tracks and a title but the title had to be from Inscriber or else it wouldn't work, and... bah. Yuck. Don't know how well the X100 does vs. the RT2000, but I never for one second, not for a millisecond, regretted giving away the old RT2000 system when I started working with Vegas.

Not to say I wouldn't appreciate some hardware acceleration from the video card GPU or something, but -- no, being tied to the hardware card was an unpleasant overall experience. Software-only from now on! :)

The edius solution looks pretty tempting for us PC users - any idea on their return policy?
I do not, no. And it takes some figuring to sort through their options -- there's Edius Pro 3, Edius Broadcast, Edius SP, Edius NX, Edius SP for HDV, Edius SD, Edius HD... and that's just what I can remember off the top of my head, there may be more! Wacky. But near as I can tell, all you really need is Edius Broadcast, and you've got real-time DV100 and HDV and DV and DV50 editing, any frame rate, any frame size, any codec all on the timeline at the same time; mix JPG's and GIF's and video files and WMV's all with the MXF's and AVI's and MOV's... for a "closed shop" I'd say Edius sounds very promising, and I believe I was told there would be significant upgrades to the audio handling in version 4.

FCP's got momentum though. It's established, it's working, it's been working with the DVCPRO-HD format for 20 months, and it seems like it's getting more and more acceptance...
 
PappasArts said:
How funny Barry, you coming over to the Mac.
Well, it's not necessarily "coming over" to anything -- at least, that's not the way I look at it. It's that the tool appears to work, and I'm finding that I'm so tired of fiddling and finagling and work-around'ing. So I would expect to be dual-platform, unless the Mac is so superior in the way that it works. The way I look at it, these tools are so cheap for what they do, that you just get what you need and you go with it. I've got a series of regional commercials coming up next month, it'll be a three-day job and it'll pay for a Mac, the software, and an HVX outright. For three days' work. I'd much rather just get the proper tool and save weeks of hair-pulling frustration. I could put that time into landing the next job rather than diagnosing and solving problems and fiddling around with workarounds, you know?

The reason I find this funny coming from you barry; I was just going to ask you what you use on the PC side for DVCproHD? I luv my FCP, but it isn't perfect.
Yeah, I know it's not perfect, there are things about it I already don't like. But compared to trying to execute workarounds to stay with my favorite editing platform (Vegas), it's just wasted energy, might as well just take the plunge and get the right tool. Have no doubt, the moment that Vegas announces full proper DVCPRO-HD support, I'll be leaping back on that faster than Jarred Land running from immigration officials.

Barry to hear you mention the Mini was a shock.
I used the mini as an example of just how silly it is to argue about workarounds. I mean, the thing can run FCP and it costs the same as a single 4gb card! I'm not going with the mini though, I'm just getting the low-end 2.0ghz dual G5.

What is funny, is the component into Kona DVCproHD was better looking than what went to P2 in camera same format/frame etc, when all played back together...

That ain't possible, right?
Shouldn't be, no.

DVCproHD is DVCproHD whether it's in the HVX200 or into a Kona card. Right Barry?
Should be, yes. Perhaps the Kona did some sort of smoothing or enhancing or some other type of analog process to the video before encoding it?
 
Barry_Green said:
I dunno... I had an RT2000 hardware card/premiere combo, and I used to think that was the way to go, but man, so many crashes and hardware issues and trying to keep straight whether it's one track or two of titles before realtime goes away, or one transition and two video tracks and a title but the title had to be from Inscriber or else it wouldn't work, and... bah. Yuck. Don't know how well the X100 does vs. the RT2000, but I never for one second, not for a millisecond, regretted giving away the old RT2000 system when I started working with Vegas.

Not to say I wouldn't appreciate some hardware acceleration from the video card GPU or something, but -- no, being tied to the hardware card was an unpleasant overall experience. Software-only from now on! :)

Oh I remember those RT2000 days - yes with Premiere 6.5 UGH! Video + PCI solution - locked solution...I agree on that one... RTX100 with PPro 1.5 has been solid for me - they really worked out the kinks. They switched it to a Hardware/Software combo - they also have output plugins for AE, Encore. Heck The RTX was also pretty stable with P6.5 back in the day (RTX100).
 
Ouch!

Ouch!

Here's what Adobe says for the minimum requirements:

Pentium 4 1.4GHz processor for DV
Pentium 4 3GHz Hyper-Threading Technology for HDV
Dual Xeon 2.8GHz processors for HD
 
Barry_Green said:
With that said, RayLight might be a decent interim solution provided your desktop is up to the task. RayLight would let you work with footage on Premiere Pro or Vegas. It just requires a PC a whole lot faster than what I've got, and seeing as the Mac can deliver half a dozen streams of DVCPRO-HD in realtime, RayLight probably needs a dual-core 3ghz processor (or two) to get true realtime performance from Vegas, for one stream.

Well, Raylight doesn't appear to be multithreaded in any way, or at least not that my systems report, so any additional CPU cores are pretty well wasted. On a dual-core AMD 4800+ system with 2GB RAM and a 4x320GB 7200rpm RAID, it craaaaaaaaaaaaaaawls in Vegas 6. Obviously, this is the beta demo, but it hasn't inspired me to purchase. I can't get anywhere near real-time with a single stream of 1080i on this system. It's still twice as fast as what Avid's DV100 codec does, but not a workable solution, IMO. It's an interim solution for those on a shoestring budget, desperate to just barely get by for occasional DVCPRO use until a real solution comes along. I wish it were more than that, but it's just not...

I've been asking that question about them, and about Vegas, for months. I expect that by this time next year they'll probably both be on board, but I really don't intend to limp along with some bogus partial implementation of any software when there are perfectly workable solutions out there right now. Avid works. It needs an update to support 1080/24p and 1080/30p timelines, but other than that it works. Edius works end-to-end, and while it may not have all the features of Avid, it has better integration. And FCP works top-to-bottom, other than the "import P2" unwrap/rewrap process.

Many people have followed my little saga over at dvinfo.net regarding extensive test drives of these NLE solutions. I finally gave in and just bought me a G5 quad. I want a solution that works now and not something that I will have to beta test along the way. The Mac solution made sense to me... As a 3D animator who uses Lightwave as my primary 3D tool, I gain a quad-core workstation and render node, as well as a coherent video editing and DVD authoring solution supporting all my current gear plus the HVX when I get it. It will integrate just fine with my current network of several PCs and a dual G4 Mac. I know that this isn't the solution for everyone and it's an expensive one compared to just "roughing it" on the PC until a solution materializes between now and who knows when... OTOH, as you mention, the Mac mini is dirt cheap and a decent mini with FCP doesn't cost any (or at least not much) more than buying Avid Xpress Pro for a PC system. And Avid with DVCPROHD is complete mess right now.
 
Actualy it says that : 'sources say that we can expect third-party support for DVCPro HD within 90 days'

Still third party support...
 
redindian said:
Why do you restrict your Avid only to your laptop
Avid Xpress HD runs on desktops too... right?
Yes, but my desktop is old and lame and falls under Avid's minimum system requirements. The laptop meets the minimums (barely, but it meets 'em!)

New Mac desktop should be here in a couple of days. But I probably need to upgrade the PC desktop too anyway...
 
AppliedVisual said:
I finally gave in and just bought me a G5 quad. I want a solution that works now and not something that I will have to beta test along the way.
I know what you're saying -- my G5 Dual arrives in a couple of days.

I know that this isn't the solution for everyone and it's an expensive one compared to just "roughing it" on the PC until a solution materializes between now and who knows when...
I know what you're saying, and I have no patience or tolerance for roughing it anymore. I embrace the HVX because it's the right tool; you don't have to fiddle around with any bullpoopoo like de-interlacing or filter converting or twixtor or any of that stuff, it just works. Why would I want to do the same with my editing system, when I could just get one that just works?

But I don't think Avid or Canopus qualify as "roughing it" -- I mean, Avid is frickin' AVID, after all, and it works fine. It'd be nice if they added pulldown removal in 1080, but I don't think Apple has proper pulldown removal in 1080 either. And Canopus, near as I can tell, works 100%. When I upgrade my desktop, I think I'll give Canopus a shot -- it's supposed to be the most Vegas-like editor out there, and it has reportedly the best MXF support.

And Avid with DVCPROHD is complete mess right now.
Why? Seems to work fine; only hitch is pulldown removal in 1080. What am I missing? I can capture HD, I can import HD from the cards, I can cut it on the timeline, I can export it back to the camera... what makes it be a mess?
 
FROM : Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.2 Tech Specs

Native DVCPRO HD: 1080i/59.94, 1080i/50, 720p/60, 720p/24 only

720p/23.976 and 1080p/24 HD project types. (Footage of these formats may be captured in other Avid systems such as Avid Media Composer Adrenaline HD and edited in Avid Xpress Pro 5.2.)
 
Just went to the MGLA meeting in Los Angeles where the whole evening was an Adobe presentation of AE7 and the Production Studio including PP2. Definitely no native DVCP100 support except with Axio. They did not mention to the crowd the high buy-in costs of going with Axio. In fact they seemed as if they didn't really want to support DVCP100 at all, almost scoffed at it.

Too bad, the new integration of AE7, PP2, Audition 2 and Encore is really nice. It's much better than FCP Studio. I was really starting to think about buying a PC (I am mainly Mac) just for the Adobe Production Suite but by the end of the night I just felt pissed-off about the whole thing.
 
If Premiere 2 has DVCPRO available in a few months, it will be worth the wait for folks like me who have a powerful workstation and don't want to pay for the Axio.

Many of our dual Xeon workstations will be able to edit DVCPRO HD without hardware support once the codecs are available. That is up to Panasonic. They gave the rights to Apple first and for the time being all solutions for the PC rely on an accelerator card that has the codec as firmware.

Fear not. Not only is this Raylight product being developed but Main Concept already has a DVCPRO codec and expects to be testing a DVCPRO HD codec within a few months. Main Concept makes a good product and will, most likely, keep me happy until Adobe secures the rights to the codecs.

That's my 2 cents. I think the video suite is killer.
 
BigMike said:
and for the time being all solutions for the PC rely on an accelerator card that has the codec as firmware.
No they don't. Neither Avid nor Canopus requires any sort of hardware accelerator card or firmware codec.
 
Barry I have a question.

Adobe syst reqir: dual Xeon 2.8GHz for HD

Canopus syst requir: dual Xeon 2.8GHz for HD/HDV

Do they refer to the uncompressed 4:2:2 signal (also SD uncompressed) or they talking about DVCPRO-HD as well. And I rephrase the question: 3ghz or 3.6 prossecor is not enought for DVCPRO-HD capturing, editing etc ?
 
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